Hef's 'frisky' girlfriend and a broken immigration system

Regarding Susan Reimer's recent column about Hugh Hefner's Canadian girlfriend, when the creator of "Frisky Friday," a Twitter meme featuring women in naughty poses, can be granted an O-1 visa for her "extraordinary ability," it demonstrates just what a disaster our immigration policy really is ("Hef's playmate hops across border," July 9).

I've attended a number of Occupy Baltimore events where a major complaint of the "occupiers" is the lack of employment opportunities. Yet the State Department goes on creating new visas that undercut jobs for U.S. citizens.

There's no reason why more than 100,000 workers need to be imported to fill summer jobs in places like Ocean City. And it's obscene the moguls of Silicon Valley refuse to recruit American college graduates. And once these foreign visa holders get here they put down roots and refuse to leave — making it even harder for American job seekers.

We need to set up a visa system that has a beginning, a middle and an enforced end — whether it's for picking tomatoes or creating naughty social media events.

Today's world is on the move, but it's always in one direction — with the United States, of course, being the candy jar of choice. Any government that fails to defend the well-being of its own citizens first has violated the social contract. But until Americans recognize just how we're being ripped off, nothing will change.

There are plenty of extraordinarily skilled Americans; unfortunately, our government doesn't seem to care much about them.

Funding for the federal government under the current continuing resolution runs out on Tuesday, Dec. 11 at midnight, and the Republican majority in the House of Representatives seems poised to prevent another government shut down.

Is the looming battle over immigration really about Congress' power to legislate immigration policy or about the president's power to set policy by executive order? I think it's the latter. But what really is at stake is the ability of Congress to deal effectively with the millions of illegal...

On Thursday President Barack Obama granted amnesty to 5 million illegal aliens even though he declared it is not amnesty ("Obama makes his case for immigration action," Nov. 21). He has lost credibility with all the lies he has said in the past six years as president. What he did was...

The Obama administration has a plan to pour $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money into Central America "to try to slow the flow of unaccompanied minors and other migrants without documentation" to the U.S. ("Democrats press Kerry on $1B Latin aid request," Feb. 25). Just wondering, wouldn't $1...

Some thoughts on your editorial regarding the U.S. Department of Homeland Security budget while basking in climate cooling ("No time to make America less safe," Feb. 16). First, why is it OK for the Democrats to filibuster and not pay a price when the GOP would be blasted for the same...

Democrats are telling Republicans to put the American people first and pass a clean Department of Homeland Security funding bill because Democratic senators will not accept anything other than a clean bill ("Congress OKs deal to avoid shutdown at Homeland Security," Feb. 27). Republicans say...